POETRY

Where the water runs wildly

before the birth of the first vowel (poems in times of Covid)

the woodlands at Bukit Timah, Singapore — flaleman 2022

like sunscreen. we all know who
we want to blame. and it is certainly
not I but my neighbor and my sister
and of course my mom who finds

that a face mask makes her look
too Asian. while deep in the forest
where the water runs wildly under
the dark and mossy bridge of a tree

fallen sideways under a load of words
I feel I can no longer breathe and the sun
is entrenched in the caverns now my home.

here is my life and the matter of my body
matters quoad vitam aut culpam. here
it is that I exist. in the woods and wetlands

of my thoughts.

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